


A Dangerous Man

by Penny_P



Category: Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Episode Related, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-14
Updated: 2019-07-14
Packaged: 2020-06-28 04:36:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,911
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19804897
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penny_P/pseuds/Penny_P
Summary: Following the events in season 7 episode "Repression," Kathryn and Chakotay must find out if the trust between them has been broken permanently.





	A Dangerous Man

**Author's Note:**

> When Voyager was still in first run, I wrote a lot of episode-related stories because I felt the show missed so many opportunities for character development, drama and continuing story arcs. The episode Repression bothered me because the two people Janeway trusted most betrayed her with seemingly no consequences afterwards. Emotions don't work that way. And of course, my stories also tried to honor canon but play to the subtext of the J/C relationship that was there in the early years. So in my stories, the Captain and the Commander continue to resist their mutual attraction for the good of the ship and the crew.

Kathryn Janeway was going to hit something. Or someone. The trust and confidence of Voyager’s crew in one another, painstakingly built over years of shared hardship and mutual reliance, had been smashed by the actions of a Bajoran madman. The betrayal of first Tuvok and then Chakotay, the two persons to whom she was closest in life, still caused a pain in her chest. The fact that the madman had done his work before they ever reached the Delta Quadrant only made it more surreal.

The ordeal was over now, but three days later the universe was still out of kilter, and she was ready to knock it back into place out of sheer frustration. The urge to hit something or someone was becoming overwhelming and the distinction between the two was rapidly diminishing in importance. She decided to get to the holodeck quickly, before it ceased to matter at all, knowing just the program to let her vent her energy.

Holodeck 1 was in use when she arrived, which irritated her more than it should have. Her reserved time was clearly posted; there was no excuse for someone to run over and encroach. When she checked on the occupant and program, though, she smiled with the faintest hint of malice. _Perfect. This is perfect._ The very program she had intended to run, with a bonus. She would have the chance to hit something and maybe take a poke at the source of her frustration.

Without bothering to announce herself, Kathryn walked into the holodeck and paused. The gymnasium program always caught her by surprise with its realism; even the wood floors reeked, as if the smells of sweat and dirty socks had seeped in over the years. This was a world of physicality and emotion, not intellect and definitely not gentleness. Good. She wasn’t feeling gentle.

Chakotay was in the ring, sparring with a holographic partner, and did not notice her. His shirt was stained and damp, and his arms covered with a sheen of sweat. He’d been at this for a while.

She stopped and watched him work against the hologram. Although she was not a fan of boxing and no judge of its finer points, it was obvious that Chakotay was getting the better of his opponent. He was connecting more frequently and with more force than the hologram. Possibly he had programmed a less skilled partner, but she doubted it. That wasn't his style. He liked to challenge himself, to improve.

He landed a hard blow to the hologram's jaw, then another with his right hand and then with his left. Huge drops of holographic sweat glittered briefly in the light as they flew into the air. If he weren't a hologram, she might have felt sorry for him; it looked like Chakotay shared her need to pummel the universe back into shape. He was so intent on his sparring that he still hadn't noticed that she was watching.

That was fine with her. She took off her jacket, so that she was left in her exercise tank top and leggings, and reached into her gym bag for the pair of boxing gloves she had replicated earlier. Holding them up, she looked at them closely and wondered if this was still a good idea. Then she glanced again at Chakotay in the ring, landing a series of punches to the hologram's midsection and decided that yes, it was still a good idea.

When the bell sounded to end the round, she was struggling to fasten the second glove. Just as she was gripping the fastening with her teeth, Chakotay deleted the holographic boxer and turned around.

"Kathryn? What are you doing here?"

"I came to work out. You’re into my time, but I don’t mind sharing." She raised her left hand. "How do you close the second one?"

LHe climbed down from the ring and came over to her, pulling his own gloves off. "You’re kidding."

"Nope." She extended her left hand, waiting for help. "I intend to hit something as hard as I possibly can for as long as I can and this seems like the best place for it. Got any pointers?"

Looking wary, he closed the glove for her. "You need basic instruction, not pointers. What’s bothering you?"

The mere fact that he had to ask fueled her frustration. "What’s bothering me? Oh, let's see. In the past month, I've been running around in a Borg suit, facing the likelihood of Seven's death, and learning that terrorists almost blew Voyager and every ship for half a parsec to kingdom come. Then, a week ago, my closest friends are brainwashed by a crazy Bajoran fanatic and stage a mutiny, which was successful only because I was derelict in my reaction. The people I rely on the most threatened first to maroon me, and then to kill me. I've spent three days trying to convince Tuvok that I still trust him and trying to draft the report to Starfleet in a way that won't set off alarms for the admirals who still think the Maquis are out to get them. You, on the other hand, have spent those same three days avoiding me like I’ve got Tarellian plague. I think that sums it up nicely."

He took a half step back from her. His eyes flicked toward the door, as if he might run away at any moment. "I'm not avoiding you. I sat beside you on the bridge the entire shift."

"Uh huh. And you answered me in words of one syllable when I spoke to you and you won't look me in the eye for more than two seconds, and you practically ran out of the mess hall when I came in." She turned on her heel and walked over to the speed bag.

Since she had never actually looked at one before, she took a moment to study it.

"It's not you, it's me." He followed her over. "Have you ever done this before? It's not as easy as it looks."

She hit the bag with her right hand experimentally. It bounced back and forth with a satisfying noise. "So, it's you. Is that supposed to make me feel better?"

"Be careful with that. Kathryn, I'm embarrassed by the whole thing. I don't know what to say to you."

Willfully ignoring his advice, she hit the bag with her left hand, harder this time, and felt gratified by the violent swinging it caused. "Oh, for god’s sake, you weren’t yourself. You were responding to mind control."

"Partly. But it was still me. The way I used to be."

She tapped her hands against one another, getting used to the feel of the gloves. "I know that."

"No, you don’t understand. No one was controlling my mind when I told Tuvok to kill you. Teero’s compulsions weren't that specific.”

The speed of her reaction surprised her. Turning abruptly, she hit the speed bag with her right hand, then caught it on the rebound with her left, a one-two punch. "I know."

Chakotay stared at her. "Easy. You need to start slow and get a rhythm. And what do you mean, you know?"

"After nearly seven years, I know you pretty well." She reached up and stilled the bag.

"Don’t hit it so hard at first. And you really don’t understand."

"Thanks. And the hell I don’t." She jabbed lightly, making contact. Then again, and again. Right hand, left hand. A 1-2-3-4 rhythm. "You’re a dangerous man when you want to be. You’re intelligent and efficient and you’ll do whatever needs to be done to achieve your objective. That’s why Starfleet sent me after you in the first place."

He said nothing, and he wouldn't meet her eyes. That made her angry again. She fixed her gaze on the bag, trying to gauge its speed. 1-2-3-4. "I used to wonder what would have happened if we hadn’t clicked the way we did at first. Now I know. When you put me in the brig, I knew the loyalty you’ve always given to me had been redirected. And I knew I was in trouble."

She concentrated on her movements, trying not to remember the moment when Chakotay told her he was taking her ship. She had felt the universe lurch then, a hard drop to the left as one of her foundational underpinnings gave way. She had actually visualized it that way, saw herself standing on the end of a pier over the ocean as the pilings on one side collapsed without warning. She did not want to remember that, but image kept coming back to haunt her. The 1-2-3-4 motions helped steady her. "The tactic was you. The redirection was Teero. I knew that."

He suddenly looked haunted. "I didn’t. I felt like I just woke up after a long nap, and everything in this quadrant was just a dream. Tuck your elbows in a little more."

"Like this?" Biting her lower lip, she maintained the rhythm, 1-2-3-4.

He shook his head. "Using you to prove Tuvok’s loyalty – ordering him to kill you - that was unforgivable."

She did not answer immediately. It still hurt too much. The damaged pier on which she had been standing in her mind collapsed completely the moment Tuvok had pointed the phaser at her head while Chakotay looked on coolly. She had been hurled into an uncharted sea – and three days later, she was still there, treading water and trying to find her way home. 1-2-3-4.

When she felt calmer, she stepped back from the bag. "Tell me something. When you looked at me at that moment, what did you see? A friend, or an enemy?"

"Neither." His voice dropped, and he looked away. "You were an obstacle, that was all."

"It showed." The memory of cool eyes, calculating eyes, studying her as if she were an exercise in tactics still cut deeply. Not Chakotay's eyes, not at all. That was the only thing that had kept her from crying out at the time – she knew she was looking into the soul of a Bajoran fanatic, not Chakotay.

She looked at him, saw the tension in his shoulders and the clench in his jaw. For the first time she saw how guilt was eating at him and felt her simmering anger abate a little. "Would it make you feel any better to know I wasn't surprised when the phaser didn't work?"

"You couldn’t have known."

She kept her gaze level. "No, but I wasn’t surprised because it was something I would have done if I were in your place."

That surprised him; she could see it in his eyes. "No. Not you."

"Yes, me. In similar circumstances, with a small crew and a need for unquestioned loyalty, damned right I would have." She paused. "Or something like it. Good commanders have to be ruthless sometimes. It comes with the job. I just wouldn't have done it to a friend."

"At that moment, you weren't my friend." He turned his head away and seemed to study the stains on the floor. "I remembered the last seven years, but none of it mattered. You were just an impediment to my mission. It didn't matter that you were scared without cause; you were simply a means to an end."

"I wasn't scared. Worried, maybe. If you had put me off the ship, I'd never have another chance to break Teero's hold on you. But that's all." She turned back to the bag and resumed the light punching, 1-2-3-4.

"I don’t believe you."

"That’s your problem." She was getting angry again, really angry, and she picked up the pace. 1 –2- 3-4, 1-2-3-4.

He reached out and took hold of her arm, stopping her mid-jab. "I saw your eyes, Kathryn. You were scared. That’s what I can’t forget or forgive."

"Get over it, Commander. I have." She yanked free, turned back to the bag. 1-2-3-4, a little harder, a lot faster. "You're a dangerous man but you have never been a murderer."

"Don't kid yourself. Teero's conditioning might not have been specific but it was so strong that I would have murdered you in cold blood if I thought you were in my way."

The admission shocked them both, and they both froze. The only sound in the gym was the echo of the speed bag, flopping without control. She turned to him slowly. "Not your eyes," she almost whispered. "His. That's what scared me."

Shame and regret flashed across his face, and he closed his eyes rather than face her.

"No!" Anger, hot and consuming, flared up again within her. " _Don't do that._ You _keep_ doing that. I need to know he's really gone, I need to know what you see when you look at me. I need to know if it's there."

"What?"

"The understanding. The trust. Whatever you call whatever it is between us. It’s always been there, right from the start, but it was gone. _He_ broke it." She was almost shouting at him. "And I still don’t know if it’s back because you’ve been avoiding me for three days, dammit."

The anger exploded, demanding a physical release. She slammed her right fist against the speed bag with a force born of temper and adrenaline. Then she threw her left hand with equal strength, but the bag was rocking at a different pace than before and she missed entirely. The momentum of the blow pulled her off balance, and she staggered forward, falling. Chakotay grabbed her and pulled her up before she hit the floor.

Embarrassed, she tried to step back but he held on, his fingers tightening on her ribs, looking at her intently. Embarrassment began to shift back to anger, and she fixed a stare directly into his eyes. "Let me g-"

Without even a flicker of warning, he yanked her against him and covered her mouth with his. He pressed her close, and she felt her breasts flatten against his chest, felt her heart begin to race, felt his lips claim her, as if marking his territory. Surprise surged through her, then relief, and then, oh and then, need. She needed this. She needed this.

She wrapped her arms around him, trying to get even closer, as eager as he. It was not the first time he had ever kissed her, but it was the first time in a very long time, and she realized how much she had wanted it.

His arms tightened and kept his mouth sealed over hers, unwilling to release her for even a moment. The little voice in her head that always warned her to stop was oddly silent. The only thing she could think about was how right this felt.

He kept control of the kiss, and she knew the instant he realized that they either had to stop or move forward to something neither of them was quite ready for. Then he brought the intensity down, so that the urgency turned to sweetness and then the sweetness muted to simple happiness. When he lifted his head, he was smiling. "Does that answer your question?"

She looked at him in complete astonishment, then nodded slowly as she tried to catch her breath. He was looking at her with complete openness, and the understanding was there. The trust. Whatever it was, it was back.

He must have interpreted her expression as surprise, because his smile faded. "I'm sorry. That really didn't solve anything, did it?"

"Oh, I don't know." Her mouth tugged to one side, the wry half-smile she used for self-deprecation as well as resignation to the inevitable. "It tells me we still have the same old issues to deal with."

He brushed her hair from her face, whether it needed it or not. "I suppose so."

"That's not all bad, you know." Her heart rate was finally returning to normal. "At least we know how to cope with them."

"We've gotten good at that, haven't we? Coping."

She laid her head against his shoulder and smiled. The universe had righted itself.

They stood for a moment, holding each other, her gloved hands awkward against him. As he rubbed her back lightly, she said, "You can be a dangerous man when you want to be."

"Thank you."

"Are we going to be okay now?"

"I think so. Give me a little time. I need to – " he cut off, chuckled. "I almost said I need to assimilate what happened."

Even though it wasn't that funny, she laughed lightly. "I know what you mean. Just don't avoid me any more."

"Deal."

"And you look darn good in those Maquis clothes. Do you think you could wear them to dinner sometime?"

She felt the rumble of laughter in his chest. "All right. If you’ll wear that blue dress."

"Deal." It was a beginning. In her mind, she saw that pier again, and its foundations were being rebuilt. It would take more than a day or two, but eventually it would be whole and strong again.

She felt more at peace than she had in days, but that wasn't saying a lot. This corner of her life might be back on track, but she still had a bone to pick with the universe in general. A sudden smile lit her face. "Now that we've settled that, show me how to hit this thing properly, will you? I still have the urge to really smack something."


End file.
